Pyotr Podkovyrov (1910–1977) was a Soviet composer. Born in Chelyabinsk, he played folk instruments during his school years, led amateur arts groups, and accompanied a choir. In 1928 he went to the Sverdlovsk Music College, where he studied folk instruments and composition. He moved to Minsk in 1933 and graduated from the Belarusian State Conservatory in 1937, studying composition with V. A. Zolotaryov.
Podkovyrov worked as an inspector for the Byelorussian SSR Repertory Committee in 1935–1936 and for its arts administration’s music department in 1936–1938. He taught at a music school in Maykop in 1943–1944, then returned to Minsk. From 1948 he taught at the Belarusian State Conservatory, becoming an associate professor in 1969. He became known as a Belarusian composer and taught composition, mentoring composers and other music professionals. He was named an Honored Artist of the Byelorussian SSR in 1957.
His works include the opera Pavel Korchagin, based on Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel How the Steel Was Tempered; the cantatas Pioneer Bonfire of Peace and Ballad of the Four Hostages; and three symphonies. He wrote concertos for violin, cello, and piano, as well as orchestral works including Belarusian Rhapsody, Collective Farm Suite, and Native Melodies. His chamber and vocal music includes a piano quintet, 24 piano preludes, sonatas, song cycles, settings of poems by Robert Burns, Alexander Pushkin, Taras Shevchenko, and Heinrich Heine, and arrangements of Belarusian folk songs and dances.